The hidden sources of forever chemicals leaking into rivers – and what to do about them

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As one of the birthplaces of the industrial revolution, the River Mersey in northern England is no stranger to pollution flowing into its waters.

“It’s gone through periods of extremely bad river water quality where the river was just raw sewage”, explains Patrick Byrne, a water scientist at Liverpool John Moores University. “During the heyday of manufacturing and the industrial revolution, you would’ve had a lot of toxic metals as well from different manufacturing processes.”